Warning: Rated T for a curse word and depictions of gore.

Winter Fire

"Jack, be nimble! Jack, be quick! Jack, jump over the candlestick!"

-Unknown

Jack Frost hates fire.

He despises it. He loathes it with a huge fiery passion.

But it wasn't because of the fact that the bright orange flames were the complete opposite to his refreshingly cold snow. It wasn't even because it melted and ruined his element.

No.

The reason why he utterly abhors it with his very soul is because he considers it as the bane of his season. Because contrary to popular belief, summer, despite the scorching heat of the season, isn't the time when fires are most prevalent.

No, it's winter.

The winds blew faster and faster as they hurriedly tried to carry the guardian to the vicious flames of the fire. Jack cursed as he watched a frantic family run outside their home in panic. But suddenly, as he drew closer, the flames grew and fanned out in reaction to the sudden amount of oxygen brought to them, bringing him into a startling realization to stop flying. Mentally reprimanding himself for his careless actions, he quickly dropped to the ground and continued instead with a sprint.

"Mommy! Mommy!"

Glancing at the family standing outside their burning house, he saw a tearful panicked little girl desperately tugging her mother's shirt for attention.

"Mommy, Travis is still inside!"

The mother immediately brought her daughter into a hug.

"I know, sweetheart," she replied hoarsely, worry and fear coating her tone.

The father, on the other hand, had an expression of grim determination set onto his face. After making sure that his wife and daughter were safe, he rushed back into the fire, gathering his courage to get his son back safely.

Jack worriedly frowned as he observed the scene and swiftly made the decision to follow the man. He sighed in frustration as he watched the other male dodge a falling piece of debris. Raising his staff, a jet of frost and ice surrounded the doorway in an attempt to stabilize it, but melted immediately before it had any visible effects.

Jack began to worry. They didn't have much time to look for the son. In fact, they didn't have much time at all. Making sure that the man in front of him wasn't going to burn alive any time soon, he looked around the burning inferno searchingly. Sweat glistened on his forehead, and his breaths became a little labored. As a winter spirit, he wasn't going to last long in the fire.

The heat was beginning to suffocate him.

"Travis! Where are you?"

"Travis!"

The name resounded throughout the house without a single reply. With every step taken, the calls started to come out more frantically. They didn't have much time.

"Travis!"

The father was getting desperate. Jack was already desperate.

"Travis!" They both called out.

Jack carefully stepped over a mound of burning ashes, making sure to follow the other man.

Then suddenly, movement. The boy gazed up at him with his mouth open in terror. And his eyes were gray, wide in pain. Jack watched the father stare at his son's fire-ravaged body. The corpse was burning.

And he stared at the morbid scene confusedly, because there was something wrong here. Everything was too quiet, too surreal.

(He was just merely a child, no older than the age of eight.)

And the father was sobbing, down on his knees. The ashes were falling. The kid was on fire.

(His name was Travis.)

Then the reality of the situation hit him and the volume was suddenly raised and he realized that the corpse was not a corpse. Because the screams were too loud.

Because he finally noticed the screams.

And he couldn't take it anymore. With a bout of panic, he raised his staff towards the shrieks of pain. He had to make them stop. He had to end the kid's suffering.

All at once, the screams stopped. Letting out a breath he didn't know he was holding, he peeked out towards the body of the child.

Travis, he reminded himself. The boy wasn't nameless.

A gruesome scene was laid out before him. The broken child was prone and unmoving on the ground; his mouth caught in mid-scream, his bloodshot eyes open but unseeing.

(His eyes were gray.)

The fates were cruel to him as they painted the most grotesque image Jack would ever have to see. The horror he felt at seeing the child's face didn't prepare him for what he'd see next. As his gaze traveled and wandered throughout the rest of the boy's body, he wondered with an almost perverse interest on why the scene looked so artfully done.

The limbs were charred black, with streams of dark red – of dried and coagulated blood – staining the burnt faded colors of clothing that clung to the child's broken and misshapen frame. Hints of blue surfaced on the skin and lips as the cold of the frost that covered him made itself known. The faint sheen of ice coating the dark grey of the ashes gave hints of sparkles that mocked the scenery of death.

Fire and ice were cruel in death.

He collapsed on his knees and threw up. The bloody frost and ashes were imprinted on his mind. The father howled in pain at the sight of his son, and the raging fire around them didn't matter anymore.

Jack knelt on the soot-covered floor with his head pounding, his hands trembling, his shoulders shaking. Gripping his staff, he let out a violent yell, unleashing his frustration and his sorrow with his powers going wild in a storm.

And the fire was gone.

The father stopped howling, stopped sobbing for a moment and saw the winter spirit. Then the father gripped his shoulders and embraced him, hugging him tight, while the guardian desperately murmured apologies for being too late, for not being fast enough.

But the father shook his head slowly, releasing him.

And all Jack could think of was how cruel the world was.

Because he wasn't nimble. He wasn't quick. And the fire started out of a fucking candlestick.